Category: custom

Chicagoans LOVE their city, why wouldn’t you love it? We have drawn and designed many locations of Chicago Custom Artwork for our clients over the years. Why not bring the Chicago places you love into your wedding stationery. Use the Chicago Custom Artwork as… Save the Dates, Table Designations, and even complete Guest Maps. Our Guest Maps can be drawn including up to 12 locations (for any city) not just Chicago, it makes a great way for your “out-of-towners” to navigate the BIG, windy city.

Looking for cute ways to ask your attendants? Giving your attendants a notebook in your theme that will help them keep the details in order for your big day! Plus, letting them know that you welcome and look forward to their help in the planning of your wedding day.

Check out our new “hand painted” Here comes the Bride/Just Married sign. We painted this for a client to have her Ringbearer carry down the aisle. Added a fun factor on the other side for him to carry to announce the bride with “Here comes the Bride”. Cute idea to even personalize it with the Brides name or Look out Uncle Andy…here she comes. Give us your custom colors and we can create one for your ceremony!

I thought I would post the pictures of the invitations that “were” to air on the WGN Midday News today. We saw our first “teaser” and then just seconds before it was to go “live” ….OBAMA had to become weather man. Hurricane Sandy is hitting the East coast and filled much of the news today.

Thanks to Melissa from Simply Perfect by Melissa for the opportunity again this year…sorry your hardwork, preparation and driving to the city got CUT.

Spooktacular invites for a children’s Halloween:

Here’s a sample of what you might find,

so be creative with your costume in mind.

Once you eat your treats of candy,

make sure to keep this box handy.

Your ghoulish party photo can take the place,

of the spooktacular invitation in this space.

inside of the box your guests will find the details for the party, complete with a blinking light and some pre-halloween treats.

A fun way to end the party is to have a picture for all your guests that they can put in their trinket box, what a great invitation/favor/gift all in one!

The second invitation was a take on a “message in a bottle”…

Like a scavenger hunt, lead your guests with a series of clues and teasers of what they might find when they attend your party. We used candy corn “sand” to nestle our message in the bottle.

Strong orange vinyl wrapped the cardboard mailing tube for perfect shipping and colorful arrival. By distressing the label it gives the old world shipwrecked look.

When pricing out your stationery, you have to keep in mind the postage that is required to go on the outer and the inner envelopes. While the inner is usually standard weight .45, at the current time. The outer envelope can vary greatly.

At CW we try to keep this in mind when we design our invites, anytime we use a jacket, or folder style you can guarantee that the postage will be more than the .65 cents of the cute wedding stamp that the post office carries.

BUT what do you do with all the loose pieces…? Here is an invite that we created with a ribbon strap, this one I chose to run vertical to add a different flair. Blends in with the design of the invite without adding much weight. These invites with a double envelope and 2 companion cards went out the door for .65 cents on the outer. I actually made my bride reweigh the completed invite twice to make sure we had the correct postage.

So consider your postage when you are designing your invitations.

Buy Forever stamps now and beat the price increase! Increase will take place January 27, 2013.

Recently I have taken sometime to tweak our “brand”. I am so excited about our new business cards!

Using the thumbprint swirl on the front has always been my logo of choice. To me the swir,l is the story …where ART meets Stationery. When a client comes to us, we start with a blank canvas, mix all their ideas and visions together to get just the right color palette. Our designers then collaborate to create the perfect invitation suite possible.

The back of the business card shows 8 different sketched images, (that part might have been for me)…so I don’t get bored with the artwork (haha). Branding our business has been a challenge at times, my most important point I always try to feature is we are truly “CUSTOM”. The sky is the limit when it comes to your dream invitation. Our passion for our art and designs in embedded in the stationery, you are getting more than just an invitation when you choose Carol Woldhuis Designs.

Lets chat soon, I would love to give you one of our NEW business cards!